Andy Day‘s M&A/Q&A

Aaron Gaeir is the CEO and founder of GDX Studios, he has an amazing marketing agency founders story that stretches decades. Not only has he built and sold many agency businesses over the years, he approaches life and business through an ethical and philosophical lense that means his businesses operate transparently and through equity ownership. He creates high culture companies with his team, who are all on the same page and invested in the ultimate outcome. Listen to his ideas on PLUs and buckets, which are a fantastic life framework for anyone in business including agency owners.

Kevin Wassong is a digital marketing guy from since it began in the early 90s. He's worked at c-suite and board level at the likes of Wunderman Thompson, WPP, WPP.com, iAB, etc, etc. Kevin takes us through some insightful holding company acquisitions, giving us raw accounts of how it works AND doesn't work. He explains what companies are looking for when they're doing M&A deals, how they structure the deals and post integration issues. He also discusses the future of marketing and how he's now solving one of the biggest mysteries in marketing, attribution, with his new startup INTEG:Advisors which is using the latest in cutting edge tech and AI. 

Andy Friedlander has built one of the number one sporting events agencies in the UK, having grown the business from a TV and sports event presenting career he built an agency business that caught the eye of large UK events company Smyle, a business backed by PE firm Rockpool. After nearly a year of courtship the deal was finally closed in the summer of 2022 and The Sports Presentation Company has been successfully integrated into the Smyle business. Andy is happy where he landed and was thankfully willing to share his experience of selling and how to get the best exit if you run an agency yourself. Join us as we discuss the pitfalls and the good stuff when it comes to selling your agency business.

Today we have Anton Jerges, MD of We Are Collider.

Anton has been in the experiential agency and events industry for 30 years, starting out in business development and trade shows before founding his first agency in 1997.

He then moved on to his second agency, We Are Collider in 2003 which experienced explosive growth and then went on to acquire several smaller agencies into their newly founded integrated agency.

This should be a simple story of success, but today, we have a real rollercoaster weaving through our acquisitions.

In 2015 We Are Collider was rocked when they found a major fraud in the business committed by their head of accounts, who then skipped the country.

Not only did Anton and We Are Collider survive this massive shock, but continued to make more acquisitions.

However, we’re not over yet! 

Collider was then made an offer to join an even bigger international agency, before COVID came along and scuppered the deal.

During COVID the company had to downsize and restructure while the live communications industry went into freefall. Anton made the difficult decision of closing the business down.

Today we have a story of survival. Anton relaunched Collider at the start of 2021 and is now enjoying explosive growth yet again.

Scott Allison has built Allison+Partners with his partner Andy Hardie Brown into a hundred million dollar business through acquisitions. The pair have often risked everything to get a deal done. This amazing story of agency building, growth and also selling to MDC Partners which is now part of Stagwell is a thrilling ride. Scott takes us through the early days through to the peaks of success today.

Chris Parnham is a seasoned agency M&A pro, not only did he lead Zibrant through several M&A projects and then an exit to BCD, he went on to acquire Absolute Corporate Events and then exit that business during lockdown! He's an expert marketer and brand positioning specialist. We hear all about his journey acquiring the component parts of Zibrant before their exit and then his own journey to being acquired by Venues and Events International where he is now a senior director in the enlarged business. Lots of tips and tricks in this episode for agency owners who want to grow through acquisitions.

Duncan Edwards has been one of my favourite guests as we shared some ancient history when he tried to buy my business in the late Noughties. He was the CEO of Hearst International as well as heading up the magazine business prior to that in the UK. The guy really is a living legend in the publishing world having made hundreds of millions worth of acquisitions to build the business. Listen to his amazing story and insights into the publishing world at the global level!

In this episode we discuss M&A at the top levels of the agency world. Paul is a ‘Renaissance’ entrepreneur of the media, advertising, digital, marketing and communications industry. He has held leadership positions at the highest levels at holding companies including IPG, Y&R Inc, WPP and MDC Partners. He speaks about how he has exited and reinvested multiple times as well as his current exploits.

Ian Millner is CEO of Iris Worldwide a globally agency he founded over 20 years ago. Ian has turned Iris into a powerhouse agency, doing over $100m in revenue annually. He has made multiple acquisitions, acquiring an agency virtually every year, as well as being acquired by Samsung owned agency Cheil Worldwide. Ian is a really down to earth guy and there's tons to learn from him, including, when it comes to acquisitions, just get started.